


In Endless Dance

by orphan_account



Series: In Endless Dance [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Chan, Cousin Incest, Fluff, Incest, M/M, Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-31
Updated: 2011-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:04:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis rings in the new year by finally telling Albus how he really feels about him. The outcome is rather different than what he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Endless Dance

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year, everyone! Have some ASP/LW fluff! ❤

**In Endless Dance**

 

There was an eruption of loud cheers as the Grandfather clock in the foyer struck twelve and a broken chorus of 'Happy New Year!' as ruddy-cheeked adults clinked their wine-glasses together, bumped jaws and shook hands. Louis glanced over them all with the air of someone watching a particularly boring television programme and returned his gaze to the bubbling glass of champagne in his hand. His mother—drunk and in unusually high spirits—had allowed Louis one glass of wine to ring in the New Year, but so far he hadn't touched it. He lifted it to his nose now to sniff its aroma and immediately made a face—it smelled awful, like rancid juice, or grapes which had sat out in the sun too long.

 

He held it away from himself and slumped on the couch, resting his chin in his palm. He knew he was in danger of dampening everybody's mood just by looking the way he did, but he couldn't help it if he tried. He was as miserable on this night as any other, and far from feeling celebratory, all he could think about was that he was facing yet another year of monotonous misery and crushed dreams.

 

His cousin Albus chose that moment to sit down beside him, and glancing at the boy sidelong, Louis grimaced and edged over in his seat, so that he was sitting as far from Albus as possible. From the corner of his eye he saw the boy flinch, clearly confused by Louis' coolness with him, and move over a few inches to give Louis his space.

 

“Happy New Year,” Albus offered finally, staring at Louis and waiting for a response.

 

“Happy New Year,” Louis mumbled back, turning his head so that he wouldn't have to look in Albus' direction at all. He fixed his gaze upon his parents instead, who were across the room and leaning against the grand piano, locked together in a passionate embrace and all but fornicating.

 

Feeling all of a sudden as if his stomach was trying to force its way up through his throat, Louis stopped looking at them at once and resumed staring down at his lap. His glass of champagne was slowly warming, tiny beads of condensation running down the delicate flute and stem like tears. He watched them with glazed eyes.

 

“Are you going to drink that?” Albus asked, and Louis had to fight not to look at the boy when he spoke.

 

“Probably not,” he answered dispassionately, and sniffed. “Why, do you want it or something?”

 

Albus paused for a few seconds before he said, “Sure,” and swiftly plucked the glass from Louis' grasp. Their fingers touched for a brief moment and Louis felt even sicker than he had before.

 

He watched in spite of himself as Albus closed his eyes, lifted the glass to his reddened lips, and downed the champagne in one swallow. Louis was at once impressed, though he'd rather die than admit it out loud.

 

“Gross,” he said instead, and looked about the room as though the drywall had to be more interesting than Albus Potter.

 

“Have you got anything planned for the holidays?” Albus asked after a while, clearing his throat. He sounded awkward, unsure of himself. “I'm going camping with Dad and James,” he added without delay, as if he knew that Louis would not answer him. “I'm not too thrilled to be going anywhere with James, mind you, but I suppose it beats school, doesn't it?” He let out an awkward laugh. “So what about you, then? Anything special planned?”

 

Louis let out an impatient sigh. “No,” he said, in a clipped tone. “Nothing special. Just studying for my NEWTs; you know how it is this time of year.” He tapped a foot and made a point of checking his watch. He wanted Albus to take the hint and leave; to get away from him as soon as possible.

 

There was an awkward silence.

 

“Could you at least pretend?” Albus blurted finally. His voice sounded rough; hoarse. Alarmed, Louis turned to look at his cousin and immediately his stomach somersaulted: Albus' expression was pinched, his jaw set. His eyes—huge, deep as a well, and the lushest shade of green in existence—were glassy, his mouth a hard line. He was close to tears, Louis thought with a sharp stab of self-hatred. Louis had almost made him _cry_.

 

“What are you talking about?” Louis asked when he finally found his voice. He made sure that his face remained a mask of indifference, and, though it proved to be a great struggle, he resisted the impulse to comfort Albus; to reassure the boy that Louis' apparent distaste for him was entirely unprovoked; that he was not the cause of it.

 

“Why can't you just pretend not to hate me?” Albus went on as if he hadn't heard. There was suffering etched into every line of his face. “That the sight of me doesn't make you sick?”

 

Louis' expression slipped despite his steady resolve. He hadn't planned for this _or_ prepared for it—the possibility that Albus might one day rightly confront Louis and demand an explanation for this behaviour. But now Louis' voice had absconded him, and he hadn't a clue what to say, or even how to _begin_ excusing himself. Albus would not understand.

 

At his silence, Albus threw him a look of unbridled disgust and got to his feet. “I don't know what happened to you,” he said, looking down on Louis, “but you've turned into a complete _prick_." He spun on his heel and stormed away, past his mother and father, who were dancing to some stupid old song playing over the Wizarding Wireless, and out through the curved archway.

 

Louis watched him go, his heart hammering inside his chest. His breath came in short little bursts; his hands shook. He opened his palms and stared at them for a moment, thoroughly despising himself for what he'd done, and buried his head in his hands. He wanted to yell out loud; he was desperate for someone to come over and punch him in the face, to at least give him a taste of what he deserved so that he wouldn't feel so horribly wretched, but relief was but a distant dream. It would not come to him any time soon, and he was still too cowardly to tell Albus the truth.

 

“What happened to Albus?”

 

Louis lifted his head and found himself peering up at Lily. She wore a fitted white tank top and ripped jeans, despite the cold weather, and her bright red hair was loose and fell to her waist. She tilted her head to one side as she gazed down at him, a troubled look twisting her pretty features.

 

“What happened to Al?” she asked again.

 

Louis gave a pathetic shrug. “Dunno,” he mumbled unhelpfully, and sat against the soft back of the couch, folding his arms across his chest. “One minute we were talking and then he just ... got pissed off for some reason and bolted out the door.” He shrugged again. “He should probably talk to someone about those mood swings of his; it's really not healthy.”

 

Lily narrowed her eyes at him. “Albus isn't moody,” she said, as if she didn't at all believe Louis' version of events. “And from where I was standing, he seemed to be doing most of the talking. You weren't even looking at him; you just sat there.”

 

Louis stared at her. “What's your point?”

 

Lily folded her arms across her chest, her expression turning cold. “Get up,” she said softly, her tone laced with warning, “and go find my brother.  _Apologize_ for the way you've treated him.”

 

Louis snorted rudely. “And why would I do that?”

 

“Because,” Lily said, looming over him, “if you don't, I'll go and tell my dad you just tried to touch my boobs.”

 

“ _What_?” Louis spluttered, straightening in his seat. “But—” He floundered for words. “I never—”

 

Lily shrugged. “Doesn't matter whether or not it's true,” she said casually, “he'll still kick the stuffing out of you.”

 

Louis glared at his cousin and, reluctantly, stood to his feet. Now he towered over her. “You're sick, Lily,” he said to her through gritted teeth, and began to walk away. “Sick, sick, sick.” She laughed as he swept from the room.

 

The air in the parlour was freezing cold. Someone, most likely Victoire, had left the windows thrown wide open, and now the wind was blowing off of the icy ocean and into the house, causing the red drapes to billow inward with the fragrant night breeze.

 

Louis found Albus sitting on the old chaise by the window, a miserable look on his face, chin rested in his palm. He didn't notice Louis' presence, and so Louis took this rare moment to study the boy when he was not aware he was being watched. Instantly he felt that familiar tightening sensation in his chest, as though someone had clamped a hand around his heart and was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, until he could no longer breathe. It was painful in the most awful way, as though each time he looked upon Albus was a separate tragedy in and of itself.

 

Albus' messy tangle of inky black hair lifted in the breeze, obscuring his sight, and he pushed it out of the way with an impatient gesture of his slender hand. Louis' breath caught when he saw the boy's eyes—they were lovely as always, but red-rimmed, his cheeks tracked with angry tears. Wincing, Louis closed his eyes and set his jaw, praying for guidance—after all, what on earth was he supposed to do now? Surely nothing could be worse than this: making Albus cry, letting the boy feel hurt and pain and doing nothing to stop it, keeping up this charade at the expense of both their sanities.

 

Wordlessly, Louis moved toward the boy, and ignoring stammered protests, draped his jacket around Albus' shoulders. Albus glared up at him with an undisguised fury—hatred, perhaps—and though it hurt him, Louis told himself that hatred was better than the alternative. It had to be.

 

“What do you want?”

 

Louis chose his words carefully. “I wanted to see if you were alright. You seemed upset with me.” He sat down in the chair opposite Albus and again avoided the boy's eyes. “I don't know what I did,” he lied, “but I'm sorry.”

 

“How can you not know?” Albus demanded at once. His tone was full of bitterness—months, perhaps, of quashed hurt, confusion and anger. “You've changed. We used to be close and now you won't—” He broke off here and wiped his wet face. “Now you won't even look at me. I don't even know what I did to make you change.”

 

“Nothing,” Louis said, very quietly. “You did nothing.” He bit his lip, willing away the churning at the pit of his stomach, and looked out the window. The sea roiled in the distance—black, glittering and endless, reflecting the waning moon. The garden was green and wet in the moonlight, the rosebushes glittering with trapped moisture. He could smell them as if they were right under his nose; the jasmine, too.

 

“It's not you,” he added, when all that answered him was silence. “It's me.”

 

Albus made a loud noise of disgust. “How can you even say that to me? That's how you're going to explain yourself then, is it? With a stupid cliché? Just tell me what changed!”

 

Louis let out a low breath and covered his face with his hand. “No,” he said, in that same quiet voice. “I can't, alright? I just … I can't.”

 

“Why _not_?”

 

“Because,” Louis snapped, and looked Albus straight in the face for what felt like the first time. “If I do, nothing good can come of it! It'll only make things worse and ... and you'll just go running to your father to tell him everything and I'll be absolutely _fucked_ , so no. I just can't.” He drew a deep breath and cringed. Already he'd said too much.

 

Albus blanched. He had paled to the point where his eyes were like jewels in his bone-white face, burning into Louis' own like fire. “What on earth,” he began, his breathing shallow, “are you talking about? What would I run and tell my father? What … what are you  _talking_ about, Louis?”

 

Louis, distracted for a moment by the soft curve of Albus' cupid's bow lips, shook his head and said, “I can't—I won't—tell you. It's for your own good, Al. Just trust me, okay?” He got to his feet and stood over Albus; with a sigh, he laid a hand on the boy's shoulder. “I'm not going to change,” he told him honestly, “but I will tell you this: don't you take any notice of me. Whatever I say to you, whatever I do, believe me when I tell you there's no real malice behind it.”

 

Albus glared up at him, a muscle working in his jaw. “That's it, then?”

 

Louis gave a solemn nod. “That's it.” He turned around, grief spilling through him, and began to walk away. Albus caught his arm.

 

“No!” the boy growled, and yanked Louis backward with surprising force. “No! You're not leaving until you tell me what this is all about; I don't care if I have to choke it out of you, you're not going to leave me like this!”

 

Louis stopped and took a deep breath. He caught sight of their reflection in the tall windows: Louis tall and lithe, hair like a crown of autumn sunlight, and Albus, small and slender and implausibly pretty for a boy, but with such a look of determination on his face that Louis knew that he was in for a struggle. “Let go of me,” he said then, without turning around.

 

“No way,” Albus replied with perfect insolence. “Not unless you tell me what's going on inside that frustrating little head of yours.”

 

 _I'm desperately in love with you_ , Louis' mind helpfully supplied.  _I never stop thinking about you, dreaming about you, wanting you. Just being near you at all is too much for me to bear when I know that I can't ever have you the way I want you. If you think it's painful for you, you've no idea what it's like for me..._

 

“I'll never tell you,” Louis said finally, and when he swallowed it was like razor-blades sliding down his throat. Having Albus' hand on him was enough to send him into a full-blown panic. “You're wasting your time; just go back out to your parents. Leave me alone.”

 

Albus dug his fingernails into the flesh of Louis' inner arm. “Stop treating me like a child,” he warned through gritted teeth.

 

“You _are_ a child,” Louis reminded him. “Just a child. You wouldn't understand a thing, even if I did try to explain it to you...”

 

Albus let out a strangled cry of fury and shoved Louis, hard, from behind. “You bastard!” he exclaimed as Louis stumbled and caught himself on the wooden arm of a chair. “I've had enough of this—I've had enough of  _you_!” He balled his fists and started hitting Louis everywhere he could reach—his back, his arms, his chest.

 

Louis whirled around, stunned, and tried to hold the boy off—he caught Albus' narrow wrists and shook him hard. “Stop it!” he hissed, breathlessly. He found himself fascinated, even now, with the boy's every gesture and expression: the way he held his lip between the teeth, the little crease between his brows, the light sheen of sweat along his collarbones. “This isn't what I want. I don't want to fight with you; just please--forget about this;  _stop_ it.”

 

“No,” Albus replied, shaking his head as he struggled against his stronger cousin. “I can't. I c-can't do this anymore, please...” He squeezed his eyes shut tight, thick black lashes dusting his porcelain skin, and a tear ran down his cheek. He stopped struggling at once. “Please, Louis,” he sniffled, and Louis couldn't stand to see him like this. “I miss you. I miss sitting with you and laughing at Aunt Fleur's dancing, or...or mocking my dad's horrible fashion sense.” He gave a weak laugh and glanced up at Louis from beneath lowered lashes. “Remember that tweed jacket he wore to Teddy's graduation? And the orange clip-on tie?”

 

Louis' lips quirked up at the corners, in spite of himself. “Yeah,” he said gruffly, clearing his throat. “I remember. And I...I miss you too, Al.”

 

“Then why turn your back on me like this?” Albus asked in a small voice. “It hurts, you know. I try and pretend it doesn't, but … it does.”

 

“It's better this way,” Louis told him.

 

“Better for whom?”

 

Louis stopped, words failing him, and considered this question. “I don't know,” he said after a while. “For both of us, I suppose. For me. I don't want to deal with the fall-out if you ever come to know the truth about me—”

 

“What truth?” Albus begged. His beautiful face was twisted in pain, confusion, and Louis had never seen him quite so distressed. “What are you talking about? Why can't I know?”

 

“I love you,” Louis blurted, before he could convince himself not to say it. At once it was as if a thousand-tonne weight had been lifted from his soul. Forming the words with his lips, saying them out loud, was so freeing that he felt physically lighter; totally unburdened, even if now he was terrified of what he'd unleashed and the inevitable consequences which would surely follow.

 

“What?” Albus asked him with a dead look.

 

“I love you,” Louis said again, somehow finding it easier the second time. He let go of Albus' wrists, knowing that his touch would now be more unwelcome than ever, and let his hands fall limply by his sides. “I love you like Teddy loves Victoire. Every time I have to look at you it's like a knife in my guts; that's why I don't want to look at you at all. I know it's wrong, and I know this isn't what you wanted to hear, but there it is. ”

 

Albus stared up at him, mouth agape.

 

“Are you happy now?” Louis asked him quietly. “Have I given you what you wanted?”

 

Albus was frowning. “You're not having me on, are you?” he asked.

 

Louis shook his head. “Afraid not. Sorry to disappoint.” After several minutes spent in terse silence, he let out a resigned sigh and indicated the door. “I should probably get out of here before your dad tortures me to death.”

 

Albus's arm shot out and he grabbed Louis's wrist. “Don't,” he said, breathing hard. “I'm not going to tell him anything.”

 

Louis raised a brow at him. “You won't?”

 

Albus shook his head, a dark blush spreading beneath his skin. With his flushed cheeks, rosebud lips and porcelain skin, he put one in mind of a doll, Louis thought. A beautiful little doll, so perfectly detailed that just one touch might break him.

 

“Don't look so afraid,” Louis advised the boy, and took a step back to give him some space. “I'm not going to kiss you or anything. I only told you so that you'd understand why things have to be this way. Nothing else has to change.”

 

Looking as if he were engaged in a deeply intense internal battle, Albus shook his head again and said, “No, Louis. Things have to change. They  _have_ changed.” He glanced up at Louis and, seeming rather terrified of him now, quickly looked away. “What if I wanted you to kiss me?” He spoke so quietly that Louis was unsure if he'd heard the boy correctly.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Kiss me,” Albus said again, his chest rising and falling in a rapid rhythm, and nervously licked his lips. “I want you to kiss me, Louis.”

 

Louis' heart pounded; stomach tightened with need. “Al—”

 

“Please.”

 

Uneasy, and unable to shake the feeling that Albus was only pulling this little stunt in order to ascertain whether or not Louis was being genuine about this, he stepped forward and took Albus by the shoulders. It was if his entire life had been naught but a prelude to this very moment; that the remainder of his existence rested upon the joining of his lips to Albus'; their first— _his_ first—real kiss.

 

Louis bent to Albus' height, cupped the back of the boy's head, and paused, inches from Albus' parted lips. “I  _am_ going to do it, you know,” he told his cousin, his voice a low whisper. “Just in case you thought I was taking the piss.”

 

Albus' eyelashes fluttered and he inhaled a shaky breath. He nodded. “Go on, then. Do it.”

 

Louis placed his fingertips beneath Albus' chin, tilted the boy's head back, and captured his soft lips in a warm kiss. For a moment he stood there still, afraid to move lest he shatter this tenuous moment and send Albus running, crying for his father, away from him. Albus stood just as still in his embrace, breathing carefully through his nose, before he hooked an arm around Louis' waist and gently drew him closer.

 

Warmth spread throughout Louis' body like hot honey; he lifted a hand to Albus' cheek and ran a thumb over the boys heated, silken skin. The desire was coursing through him in waves now—the desire to take so much more than this, to have Albus naked on the chaise and whimpering underneath him—but he reined it in with all the control he possessed and willed himself to behave. After all, he had come this far, hadn't he? And if he couldn't control himself after one almost-chaste kiss with Albus, then he would only prove everything he had ever feared about himself true.

 

With no small amount of reluctance, he broke apart from Albus and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” he murmured. His heart pounded like a barrel drum.

 

“For what?” Albus whispered. His chest was heaving now, eyes firmly closed.

 

“I don't know,” Louis replied, and gave a nervous laugh. "Everything, I suppose." He ached to be joined to Albus again, needed it like he needed air, but he forced himself to remain where he stood.

 

“Is it over now?” Albus asked, and opened his eyes. He put a hand on Louis' hip; searing him with the touch.

 

“Is what over?” Louis bit out.

 

“All of it,” Albus said. “You being so distant with me; pretending I don't exist...”

 

Louis let out a low breath. “If, after all this, that's still what you want, then yeah. It's over.”

 

“It is what I want,” Albus said earnestly. He flashed Louis a small smile. “Want to go watch Dad get drunk and trip over his own feet?"

 

Louis smiled, a true smile now, and extended a hand to his cousin. “Like old times, yeah?”

 

“Yeah,” Albus said with an intense look. He took Louis' hand in his own, curling his fingers around his cousin's. “Just like old times.”

 

_~Finis~_

 


End file.
